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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The script for the Devils’ 3-1 home loss tonight to the Winnipeg Jets was very similar to the one for Saturday’s 2-1 loss in San Jose.

The Devils trailed 2-0 after two periods and got a goal from Patrik Elias mid-way through the third period to pull within 2-1, but couldn’t find a way to score a second goal. Tonight, Devin Setoguchi scored an empty-net goal with 27.1 seconds remaining – the sixth empty-net goal the Devils have given up this season – but it was essentially another one-goal loss and another game in which they scored only one goal.

“We’ve, obviously, got to score,” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said. “We scored one goal in San Jose and we scored one goal tonight. As nice as it sounds, you’re not going to win a lot of games 1-0 in this league. The good news tonight is I thought we generated enough chances to score two or three. We just didn’t put them in the back of the net. More traffic, we’ve got to get a power-play goal on some of the opportunities we had, the 2-on-1s. We just have to keep chipping away.”

Elias’ deflection goal with 9:16 remaining cut the Jets’ lead in half. Elias was stationed between the circles to tip defenseman Andy Greene’s left point shot over goaltender Ondrej Pavelec’s left shoulder. Elias also scored the third period goal that brought the Devils within 2-1 Saturday in San Jose.

Although they generated some decent chances after that, they couldn’t put another one past Pavelec, who finished with 25 saves.

“We had some chances, we were skating, but, obviously, you cannot play from behind all the time,” Elias said.

The Devils had won three in a row before losing 2-1 to San Jose in the last game of a three-game trip in which they went 2-1-0. Now, they’ve lost two in a row and scored only one goal in regulation in the last three games.

“We had a lot of chances,” right wing Jaromir Jagr said. “He’s a very aggressive goalie, so if he misses some you might score six. If he’s in the zone, he might stop all of them. We should probably use a little more the high tip shot because he’s so aggressive for the first shot. We did it only once. It’s tough for the defense too. but we had enough chances to do it. It wasn’t our night, I guess.

“Sometimes it happens. You win some you shouldn’t and you lose some you should win the game.”

The Devils avoided being shut out for the sixth time this season (and third time in their last five home games), but still have scored one goal or less nine times in their first 24 games.

“I hate to say it, but we’re kind of used to it a little bit,” goaltender Martin Brodeur said of the team’s scoring struggles. “You just hope that we stay in games. Goal scoring is goal scoring. Sometimes you get your touch. Sometimes it’s a little harder. You get a hot goalie, lucky goalie. Today we got a little bit of both. We hit that crossbar in the second. It could have been a lot different, but that’s the way it is.”

The Devils had competed well against three of the top teams in the league in their road trip to Anaheim (4-3 overtime win), Los Angeles (2-1 overtime win) and San Jose, but came home and lost to a Jets team that entered the night 10-11-4.

“There’s no reason to let that game go,” Brodeur said. “It’s not like they did anything special. They sat back the whole game. They took advantage of some of the mistakes we made.”

Brodeur blamed himself for Evander Kane’s goal, which snuck past him on the short side at 7:16 of the second period after Winnipeg’s Olli Jokinen won the left circle draw from Travis Zajac. Mark Schiefele had opened the scoring with 3:59 left in the first period when he was left alone on the right side to take a Michael Frolik pass and beat Brodeur high glove.

“We had a breakdown on the first goal and the other goal was a goal off a faceoff that I should have stopped,” Brodeur said. “But two goals against a team like that when they’re on the road should be enough to win the hockey game. Again, we didn’t do enough offensively.”

After climbing to a game over NHL .500 with Thursday’s win in Los Angeles, the Devils are back to one game under at 9-10-5 with a home-and-home series against Carolina coming up Wednesday and Friday.

“We were in a tougher situation before,” Jagr said. “We’ve got to just work hard and just believe in whatever you do when you’re working. I would be more concerned if we didn’t have any chances to score, but we had a lot of chances. We just have to keep the faith.”

“Actually, I’m not frustrated after tonight, but after certain games, yes,” Elias said. “Tonight was one of our better offensive games. We’ve got to find a way to score. That’s the bottom line, no question, but I felt like tonight at least we were challenging the middle a lot more in the offensive zone, in the neutral zone. A lot of nights when we can’t get any chances or any shots, we play along the boards too much. With speed, being crisp on passes and not being afraid to take the one-on-one battles, we challenged the guys one-on-one everywhere in the offensive zone and things happened out of that.”

Elias was a little frustrated, though, about hitting the crossbar on a second period shorthanded 2-on-1 with Adam Henrique.

“It’s just the puck kind of rolled on me,” Elias said. “We made a good play with (Henrique), a little quick pass. He saw the lane there and the puck never settled down for me. It was rolling and again maybe a little bit of luck there and it would go in.

One of the positives of tonight was play of the line of Henrique, Elias and Steve Bernier later in the game. That line skated well, produced the Devils’ only goal and created several other good scoring chances.

The Devils have been looking for another line to create scoring chances behind the top line of Dainius Zubrus, Zajac and Jagr and tonight they finally had one.

“I felt like we had two lines there in the third period that were generating something and that’s the first time in a while that’s happened,” DeBoer said. “Now, we’ve got to continue to build on that.”

“Honestly, since I came back (from a six-game layoff with back spasm) that was the best two periods we felt, all three of us playing together,” Elias said. “We were moving the puck well and jumping on the puck, making plays, quick shots. I can see that working out, but we’ll see.”

It seems that in a perfect world DeBoer would prefer to have Bernier back on the fourth line with Ryan Carter and Stephen Gionta (out tonight with a right ankle injury), but likes what Bernier’s been able to do on other lines, as well.

“I miss that fourth-line identity,” DeBoer said. “We’ve moved some of those guys around at the expense of having a fourth line that could do what they did. But, at the same time, I always like Bernie’s work ethic. But, like a handful of other guys, he’s got to find a way to put a few pucks in the net, too.” Bernier has only one goal and two assists in playing in all 24 games.

***

For the most part, the Devils said they felt pretty good physically considering it was their first game back from a West Coast road trip.

“I thought considering the circumstances, our legs and our compete (level) were pretty good,” DeBoer said. “That’s a game if we pop two or three in the net we’re feeling great about ourselves. We didn’t score. That was about the only mistakes we made.”

“I didn’t feel it all,” Jagr said. “Actually, I felt a lot better than I thought I (would). We didn’t play bad. We cycled the puck. They’re a quick team, so they’re waiting for their chances and when they get it, they score on it.”

***

Brodeur said he had “no problem, no issues whatsoever” tonight after being struck in the back of the neck with the puck making a diving save on San Jose’s Brent Burns late in Saturday’s game.

When asked why he started Brodeur in net again tonight, DeBoer replied, “He’d won five in a row up until the San Jose game and even in that game he had played well. He deserved to play. Earlier in the season, (Cory) Schneider had been in a similar situation and we went with him and let him run with it and I’m not going to treat Marty any differently than the other guy.”

***Left wing Mattias Tedenby sat out as a healthy scratch tonight after playing Saturday in San Jose. DeBoer was asked what he has to do to get in the lineup more often.

“The thing here is everybody that’s with us has had plenty of opportunity to play and you either grab that opportunity and make the most of it or you don’t,” DeBoer said.

Tedenby has one goal and no assists in 10 games this season.

Michael Ryder (no goals, one assist in last eight games) and Damien Brunner (no points in his last 12 games) continued their droughts. Neither registered a shot on goal tonight.

Brunner had one shot attempt that was blocked and another that missed the net in 11:22 of ice time. Ryder played 16:19 and all three of his shot attempts blocked.

***The Devils will have Tuesday off. They will return to the ice Wednesday for their morning skate at Prudential Center in preparation for their game against the Hurricanes Wednesday night.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.